Word: langmuir
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...instructor at Hoboken's Stevens Institute of Technology put aside his lecture notes and boarded a train for Schenectady, N.Y. After long months in classroom and lab, even a temporary summer job at the new General Electric Research Laboratory looked good to 28-year-old Brooklyn-born Irving Langmuir, metallurgical engineer (Columbia) and Ph.D. in chemistry (Gottingen). But the job was better than that...
General consultants from New England participating in the panels include Cyril G. Sargent, John B. Langmuir, Joseph E. Bear, Fred B. Pitkin, Howard Stone, J. P. Howard, John E. Marshall, Elmer S. Horton, Carl J. Batchelder, Paul E. Farnum, William O. Bailey, and James H. Bruffee...
Project Cirrus (a joint cloud study program of the services and G.E.) has been very successful, said Dr. Langmuir. Thirty-five of its cloud-seeding flights changed super cooled clouds* into ice or snow crystals. Last October, at Albuquerque, two large cumulus clouds were sprinkled with dry ice. They turned into a furious thunderstorm that drenched Albuquerque with heavy rain at a time of year when rain is uncommon...
With low-hanging stratus (i.e., solid layer) clouds, Project Cirrus was just as successful. Langmuir told how the planes had drawn Greek letters and "racetrack" patterns in stratus clouds by dropping small amounts of dry ice (see cut). Sometimes the cloud was dissipated so completely that blue sky showed through the gaps. Langmuir believes that dry ice can be used to clear clouds from over airports...
...mistake of unskilled rainmakers, Langmuir explained, looking coldly at the Weather Bureau, is that they don't pick the right kind of cloud. Unless at least part of the cloud is below freezing, the dry ice will not work. Another mistake: using too much dry ice. A few pounds per mile are usually enough. If the plane dumps too much, too many ice particles are formed. They are so light that they do not fall. The overdose of dry ice merely turns the cloud of water droplets into a cloud of floating ice crystals...